“轴心突破”与中国治理传统的初形——文明基始的视角

Axial Breakthrough and the Initial Formation of the Governance Tradition of China——From the Civilizational Point of View

轴心突破造就中国治理传统,产生了独特的制度构造、价值观念、精神气质及其整体模式,形成了一种治理文明形态,并长久影响传统中国之治世样态。这一范式在西周时就已奠定。周以宗法封建之制在中国历史上第一次建构了“大规模之一统”,并由此塑造了“家国同构”的根本国家想象。天命观基于天的义理化形成了敬德保民的统治观念,催生了人道主义民本德政的出现。礼治则通过一套包罗万象的世俗化、理性化、人文化典章仪节将政治社会伦理纳于一体,使国家成为“道德枢机”,形成了一种人文主义的道德理想政治。周制使中国传统治理早早走出了幽暗、蒙昧与狞厉,摆脱了巫术与暴力,建构了人道-人伦-人文之治,也构成了华夏文明的本体。对传统治理文明需客观理性认知,也要进行现代性改造和创造性转化,方能会通融合创造出更具价值的新的治理文明。

The tradition of governance of ancient China was formed by the Axial Breakthrough,which produced the unique institutional framework,value system,spiritual temperament and the overll pattern.It created a paradigm of governance civilization,and has long influenced the ancient Chinese govermance pattern.This paradigm had been established in the Western Zhou Dynasty.Zhou constructed a"large-scale unification"for the first time in Chinese history with the Patriarchal-Feudalism,and thus shaped the fundamental national imagination of Family-State,which means the same structure of the clan and country.The ideal of the Mandate of Heaven,which is based on the morality and rationality of Heaven,generated the ruling principle of respecting morality and protecting the people,and also gave birth of the people-oriented humanitarian moral politics.The Rule of Rites integrated politics,society and the ethics into a whole,by a set of all-encompassing secular,rational and humanistic rituals,making the state as a"Moral Mechanical"and forming a kind of humanistic moral ideal politics.The institutions of Zhou brought the early govermance of China out of darkness ignorance and harshness,got rid of the witchcraft and violence,and constructed a governance of humanity-ethical-humanism,which constituted the noumenon of Chinese Civilization.The comprehension of the traditional governance civilization needs to be objective and rational,as well as to make a modern renovation and creative transformation,in order to create a more valuable new governance civilization through the integration of tradition and modernity.